Dino/Diner
Dino/ Diner was conceived in that special cognitive state between overeating and REM sleep known as food coma. My friend and I had each just finished a couple cheeseburgers. We were stuffed and we were contemplating dinosaurs.
What had become of the dinosaur? In elementary school Dinos were all the rage. Could they have been just a fad? No, we agreed, the wonder of Dinos had not been diminished. But sadly, Dinosaurs had been marginalized by the more immediate concerns of early adulthood,
To bring Dinosaurs back to the fore, we decided to embark on a road trip. We wanted to retrace the steps of these giant reptiles, and couldn’t think of a more expedient or more American way to do so than by car.
Like Dinos, Americans have large appetites. We roam from food source to food source without ever quite feeling satisfied. To sustain us on our dinosaur odyssey, we chose diners—again, for the sake of expedience and Americaness.
The following serves as a sort of visual document of our trip, a circumnavigation of Montana, linked together by diners and dinosaur attractions. But beyond that, it’s a view of a particular human culture, situated on the same evolutionary timeline as Dinosaurs.
What started as an ironic misadventure, became a meditation on transience. We felt small under the dinosaur replicas, and under the Montana sky. Sitting in diners built atop dinosaur bones gave us the sense that our stories and the stories, of those around us, would also be subsumed by natural history. Indeed, we all go the way of the Dino.
What had become of the dinosaur? In elementary school Dinos were all the rage. Could they have been just a fad? No, we agreed, the wonder of Dinos had not been diminished. But sadly, Dinosaurs had been marginalized by the more immediate concerns of early adulthood,
To bring Dinosaurs back to the fore, we decided to embark on a road trip. We wanted to retrace the steps of these giant reptiles, and couldn’t think of a more expedient or more American way to do so than by car.
Like Dinos, Americans have large appetites. We roam from food source to food source without ever quite feeling satisfied. To sustain us on our dinosaur odyssey, we chose diners—again, for the sake of expedience and Americaness.
The following serves as a sort of visual document of our trip, a circumnavigation of Montana, linked together by diners and dinosaur attractions. But beyond that, it’s a view of a particular human culture, situated on the same evolutionary timeline as Dinosaurs.
What started as an ironic misadventure, became a meditation on transience. We felt small under the dinosaur replicas, and under the Montana sky. Sitting in diners built atop dinosaur bones gave us the sense that our stories and the stories, of those around us, would also be subsumed by natural history. Indeed, we all go the way of the Dino.
